SHIP RESURRECTION

The Baltic Sea, Russia
1995

The State Tretyakov Gallery,
Moscow
1996

Sailors consider a ship to be a living being. Even when her life cycle approaches its end, her going to rest as like death. There is even such an expression as a ship cemetery. The artist went on expedition to one of such ship cemeteries in the Baltic Sea. He disembarked at one of those sites, where parts of «buried» vessels protrude over the water, resembling islands, and painted the shipwrecks.This artistic gesture brought them back and made them a part of culture again, reviving them. The play of Russian words oskresenie («resurrection») and voskreshenie («revival») slightly reduces the emotional appeal and gives an insight into the idea behind the campaign. Later, an exhibition under the same title was organized and displayed in the Tretyakov Gallery. John Bowlt, a prominent art critic, called this action a «wreckart».